MT3 and WT3 Pre- and Post-Publication Peer Review: Perspectives and PlatformsCourse Chairs: John Hilton, Editor, Cochrane, London
Instructor: John Hilton, Editor, Cochrane, London
Peer review is an established and much debated part of scholarly communication, with differing models and challenges across disciplines and publishing venues. Post-publication peer review and commenting represent a more diverse, more dispersed and less “essential” set of activities that nonetheless reflect a fundamental element of scholarship. With the growth of preprint servers and intermediary platforms and services, the lines between “pre” and “post” are blurred.
This course will take a broad view of peer review and commenting, considering them as interventions and systems. What is their purpose? Who are they for? Who do they benefit? What are the incentives and disincentives? Can post-publication peer review thrive, or is it “simply unrealistic to expect informed, well-argued opinions from those who have not been specifically tasked with the job of supplying them”? (Nancy McCormack, Law Library Journal, 2009).
The course will also survey flaws and imbalances in peer review and commenting models and processes, addressing challenges such as bias, fraud, anonymity and personal attacks. Participants will also take a tour through innovations and research in this area, seeing how they relate to the broader world of scholarly communication. Finally, the course will explore how scholars, editors and others can engage most effectively with peer review and commenting systems to achieve the most desirable outcomes for scholarship.
